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Published: September 26th 2008
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Cinque Terre
Looking up Riomaggiore (#1) Before I begin I have to admit something. I am way too excited to do this blog any justice. You will read amazing, superb, breath taking, awesome, mind numbing, spectacular, wonderful, and beyond words too many times to make an accurate assumption of this place. So, in my opinion that just means you need to visit it yourself. (You’re probably thinking, “She uses those words to describe a cent found on a dirty sidewalk in the middle of a booming city, how is this any better?”… Oh! It is!)
Leaving Milan wasn’t too difficult for me. It was, however, interesting to be up and moving with the locals before 9 in the morning. This has been the only place so far that people are always on the move. It’s not quite as laid back as everywhere else, but it’s still not quite a dominant fast pace cycle such as America. (I’ve been pretty hard on Italy since leaving Chamonix so I want to apologize- Italy is great) Also leaving Milan wasn’t too difficult because I knew what laid ahead… probably the adventure of all adventures on this amazing trip through Europe…. The Cinque Terre (it’s really hard to pronounce
I butchered it a lot until Joshua finally corrected me- Ching-kweh Ter-eh)!!!
The Cinque Terre is made of 5 cities along the Mediterranean Sea with footpaths connecting all of them. The cities themselves are located along the cliffs, and most of them budge right up next to the Sea. This makes for breath taking views that are more than rewarding after climbing up and down the rolling mountains. The cities are a wonderful splash of color next to the bluer than blue sea, and terraced vineyards weaving their way down the mountains. I supposedly takes 4 hours to hike from one end to the other, but that is excluding spending time in the cities and stopping to take in the wonderful scenery. So naturally we were glad that we made it to #4 before calling it a day. (The cities in order of our trek…Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso)
Riomaggiore is home to supposedly the best pizza within the Cinque Terre, so naturally we had to sample. Very good. Then we continued on our first hike, this was the first path created to connect any of the 5 cities. It was used by young boys and girls
Cinque Terre
start of the Via dell'Amor as a meeting place between the two cities a long, long time ago. The name for this path was very fitting Via dell’Amore (Road of Love, I think?) And is still a very popular hike for couples, many of whom have carved their names along the way. There is also a popular place to lock a lock with your loved one, I don’t really understand the meaning but it became a popular thing to do from a novel. There are plenty of locks locked along the path as well.
Manarola was our next stop. We took a walking tour of the town as directed by Joshua’s new best friend, Rick Steves! It was a good way to get a little history background of the town, and it led us to a pretty spectacular view overlooking the Mediterranean, the city, and the coast stretching north to our other destinations. Manarola is known for being a good deep water swimming town, and by this time we were hot and sweaty. Good enough excuse for me to jump in! There were two “beaches” rock ways down to the sea used by tourists and locals, but remember we are true adventures here so
Cinque Terre
the path from #1 to #2 we found our own little crevice of paradise to jump in from. The water felt even better than it looked. It was surprisingly warm and salty. We splashed around and kept needing to repeat to ourselves that we are in Italy, swimming in the Mediterranean… can you believe it!! This was beyond my wildest dream of coming to Europe. Mountains and sea all within 24 hours! Swimming around was great, plus you could see pretty far down. I didn’t venture too far into deep waters because I was afraid of being eaten up by a shark. I blame my brother and shark week for this new fear…. Thanks.
Hiking to Corniglia (Cornelia) was a bit of a trek upwards. It is the only city that is not located on the coast, but it makes up for it. Also being the smallest of the cities it was not packed with many tourists. The views for Corniglia were quite splendid, and you could really just lookout over the whole coast watching the wave’s crash into the rocks. Hiking up to Corniglia you climb a great number of stairs. The stairs seem to be home for hippies and artists. Quite a unique
Cinque Terre
where all the locked locks are locked atmosphere to walk into and it really seemed to slow down time. But once reaching the summit we realize that time has not stopped and we needed to keep going if we planned on making it to Vernazza to find a place to sleep. The trails to and from Vernazza are the longest and more treacherous climbs, boy were we happy we saved that for last. Actually hiking wasn’t that bad, and it offered a lot of amazing photo’s to be taken of Johnson’s back while we hiked along.
Vernazza itself was an awesome little town. It again was a wonderful splash of color and the locals were so nice. We wondered into the town trying to weigh our best options in finding a place to stay and literally a room found us. A guy offered us one of this rooms (private rooms are the majority of sleeping accommodations in the Cinque Terre, so we felt this was legit). He showed us, and I let Johnson and Joshua do the bardering to get a very good deal! Now we had a place to stay, showers, and our very own terrace overlooking the city, sea and mountains! It was another
Cinque Terre
the bike lock was pretty classy little spot of paradise we stumbled into here in the Cinque Terre.
In Vernazza we had our Italian dinner. We ate at a restaurant underneath the castle that, of course, was home to some superb views of the coast. We somehow got our order confused and ended up order two antipasti (entrees), but that was fine with me and Joshua because it was primarily seafood. The Cinque Terre is known for pesto, and wine (along with breath taking scenery and amazing hikes), so naturally we sampled them. The boys had lasagna pesto, while I tried spaghetti and pesto. There’s was very creamy and delicious, while mine was super basily but very good still. Again, it was too much food for this one, and the boys gladly helped me out. After dinner we walked around the town, enjoying how wonderful this trip of ours is becoming. We ended the night on our terrace, looking at the stars and listening to the music being played from the pubs below us.
The next morning we awoke, and sadly had to leave our beautiful terrace and town. But we were starting another hike this time to Monterosso, the last city to be
Cinque Terre
Manarola (#2) discovered (by us). This hike was quite the climb up and down. I don’t know if there was any flat spot. Making it to Monterosso we realized our trip through the Cinque Terre was over. We saw that a storm was approaching, which in way was good because I trip was now over and we had some spectacular weather. Still it was sad to board the train and head out… The Cinque Terre has completely stolen my heart. I loved walking into town after town that had colorful buildings leaning against each other, and small alleys just asking for you to walk (or run) through them. Plus the locals are the epitome of small town locals. Knowing everything about everybody and welcoming us into their fascinating towns.
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